A couple things brought me to think for a few about our mission here on earth. Brief forays into some popular evangelists and recent studies at church and home have brought me to this:

What is the chief and highest end of man?

Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Above is the Westminster Larger Catechism’s first question and answer. Two reference verses are provided along with the answer.  If you’re interested in more about this, hit the link: Westminster Larger Catechism.

I’ve heard discussion that Catechisms and Confessions are way to Catholic or that they are Man Made or Legalistic junk. This is simply not true, though applications of these resources can certainly be Legalistic with little effort. The facts are that the Catechisms and Confessions are the same thing as if God gave us a written test that required us to put into our own words the Truths he has provided in the Bible. They are a distillation of doctrines that are found, widespread, throughout the Bible.

So, back to the subject at hand, I did a simple search at the ESV website (because that is a Bible translation I find to be as plain English as possible without going funky, cultural or relevant in the process) on glorify.

Click here: GLORIFY

The search found:

23 verses containing glorify.

And all those references were God and Jesus, just for extra credit.
Men glorified God because of what God did to them or for them. Men were commanded to glorify God in their bodies, in all that they did. Christ glorified the Father; the Father glorified Christ. Men glorify God because of his mercy, the Gospel, because of salvation, because of God’s deliverance, because God alone is worthy.

So my conclusion is…

Is God glorified through me? Is his glory evident in my life?

Am I seeking my own glory?

There are a number of evangelists and churches out there who teach about a God who is glorified by glorifying his people. These preach a message that, in essence, God is not glorified more than when his people are prospering, shiny, happy, self-sufficient, healthy, well-dressed, affluent, positive, sparkling.

Wait.  That last one was a reference to some vampire thing, I think. Did that slip in there somewhere? LoL. Side humor, I guess.

Back on topic.

Too many are churches and preachers who are glorified by the numbers they amass to themselves; who are communicating the disease of self-glorification through use of the Name of the Most High One. Too many of us believe that we bring glory to God by doing stuff that generally improves our personal situation and lives. This has two effects on the people who do not believe.

1. They are attracted to the show and treats offered by these self-help, family-improvement institutions and become well polished pieces of art, pock-marked by flaws that are glossed over with the diamond-hard shellac of superficial self-glorification. Look great, feel great, shot full of holes and dying. They come seeking and find what looks good on the outside and conceals horror on the inside

Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

2. They are repulsed by the completely apparent stupidity of a faith group that claims to be God’s Children, who cannot defend their faith, falter under the first heavy storm in life, clearly fake the miracles, love people to death in hugs and money but do nothing for the soul. Some seekers seek the truth, and they are graced enough with sense to see the absolute inconsistency and corruption when they see it.

Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

I, we, are still under this spell, I think; us post-modern/post-baby-boomer/generation-Y children. We instinctively seem to expect that God will provide, make a way, sugar-coat our lives.

B.S. and I mean it. We have it backwards. Look at the verses again. We’re not doing God a favor by pursuing Glorifying. We’re not getting paid for it.

Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

We owe, not for payment for Services Rendered, but because it is our role as creation. God made us for that purpose.

A friend ran this through the media stream in my direction:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22)

This stuff, right here, is not decoration to make us prettier (though it does just that), nor is it meat that makes us more substantial (though it also does just that). This stuff, the fruit of the Spirit, is what glorifies God, for it is the very characteristics that we should have as the righteous, properly conformed-to-his-original-design creatures that we should be.

Here’s the rub: We can’t do these things on our own and call it glorifying God. God installs these things within us. He takes our intellectual grasp of the fruits, which we vainly attempt to bring about on our own. He takes the understanding and brings it alive in us (re: Holy Spirit) so that we realize the real reason and method and application of the fruit. He makes it clean and pure fruit; sweetness and fragrance directed solely at Him.

No longer do we love others so that we can get their love in return. No more happiness based on those around us. No peace, patience, kindness, gentleness so we can get along well with others. No more goodness, faithfulness based on our own capacity and definition. There is freedom from legalistic and self-flagellating self-control.

Because we love others only because we see God’s love for them and how it glorifies him. Because we find happiness within our relationship with God, which transcends all worldly and bodily hardship. Because we find that peace, patience, kindness and gentleness only serve to Glorify God who alone has the right to vengeance and has demonstrated, through his own works, especially through Christ, that these are greater than fire and hell. Because goodness and faithfulness are found in God, through God and by God’s definition and point directly back to him. Because we constantly strive to limit ourselves from our sinful tendencies in order to glorify God more as the fruit of the Spirit fills the void left by our tidied minds and souls.

In summary: We must find a church, a preacher, a pastime all that focus not on the numbers or the miracles or the benefits of this pseudo-gospel; instead pointing entirely to God, calling us to holiness and the real Gospel which produces people devoted to glorifying the Most High.

As a pastor said, back in Cuba: “O Lord, that they see less of me and more of Thee.”

Short prayer, though I’m not so into praying over the intertubes.

Lord, I can’t seem to make this fruit thing work. I think I understand, through your Word, that I cannot, though I am sure to go back and try again with my own power. Lead me, through my failures, to turn to you for the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that should be apparent in my life. Lead me, through my successes, to realize that all of it is of you, through me, but entirely of you, for your glory and nothing more. Make my poverty your glory, my destitute spirit rely upon you for all things because all things must glorify you. Keep me from me and turn me to thee.

Lead me to be

what my beloved most needs

what my children most learn

what my church most should have

what the world should most see

Lead me to be

a lover of you

a servant employed

with but one chief end

your fame my sole joy

A number of recent conversations have asked me to check my view of God, his word and the work he’s doing in my life.  Church has been challenging me on this the whole time we’ve been attending.  Work, in the last two weeks, has enjoyed a sort of opening of hearts and I’ve been a part of several sincere and serious talks about how to view God and the Gospel.  Online forums that I frequent have worked at me as well.

Some things I’ve found to savor and contemplate:

God is completely sovereign.  On the way home from work today, David Jeremiah, from Shadow Mountain Church here in Cali was talking about heaven.  He noted that John’s Revelation included a peek through the door to heaven.  Mr. Jeremiah said that John had been given a glimpse into the Control Room of the Universe and what he saw was God on the throne.  God is on the throne, never took a vacation, is in control.  Of everything.  Not just some stuff and letting the trivia spin its own course, but every little detail of our lives:

Luke 12:22-31 — And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

I’m completely dependent on him.  I can’t argue with him.  I am his.  I am holy because he made me holy and I’m filling out to fit that suit by his work in my life through the Holy Spirit.  I’m not perfect yet, but that is because God is glorified in his work on me right now as well as the glory he gets for saving me in the first place and perfecting me in the end.

Romans 7:14-25 — For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

And I find that I really must be working on my Bible study and striving to follow the instructions contained in God’s Word.  There’s no room for quibble or putting off.  If it says to do something (or to not do something), I have to comply.  If I don’t understand what’s going on, there’s an instruction for that:  Study harder, pray harder, forsake not the fellowship in the process.  God helps through my reading, my prayer, my fellowship with his people.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 — All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Acts 17:11 — Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

All this is pretty simple, and the scriptures take up more space than my own writing, but I’m also learning that usually my own words can’t really compete with what the Bible says on its own.  It suffices to say I’m really working at this, reading the Calvin’s Institutes, Martin Lloyd-Jones’ Great Doctrines; doing reading from the start of the OT (working in Exodus now), Luke, Acts; Attending, when I can, the Fundamentals of the Faith (MacArthur course) at church as well as the church’s men’s group on the Great Doctrines.

I’m trying to apply all this in the family, especially in relationship to A, who deserves a much more righteous husband than she has right now.  She needs a more loving, godly husband.  The desire is to glorify God through it all.  And recent months have been slowly revealing this in unmistakable crescendo.  Specially in the last couple of weeks.

Do not, however inane the conversation may be, on any circumstances get into a situation in which you compare your wife to any other woman in the universe. 

To do so is to tear down the entire concept of unity as it is portrayed in the Bible.  To do so is to insert some other body or mind between the husband and wife. 

There is one (ONE) wife that has been specifically set apart for one husband.  Without exception, we have only one filter through which we view our wives and that is through the lens of the Bible (i.e. Christ). 

To do otherwise, in either negative or positive connotation, is a hypocritical error.  It is a sin that reveals the depth of our own hearts’ depravity in regards to the understanding of relationships.  God set the system up as a reflection of Christ’s relationship to the Church and therefore, if we have demonstrated the corruption of our view of marriage through introduction of an external standard of measure, we also imply very clearly, as if making the same statement out loud, that our concept of the church is horribly skewed.

Ephesians 5:25: 

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

If there is any sort of play room in this verse that leaves opportunity to squeeze in another woman (or anything else, for that matter), it would take one heckova lot of convincing for me.

There are some places in the Bible that are more capable of handling a little drift.  This is not one of them.  Ever.  This little command is one that is loaded with implications that are anything but trivial.  From the first day of a relationship all the way until the marriage day and through till death parts us there is no option to compare each other to anything.  Doing so insults so deeply and is so uncaring that it might as well be intentionally slapping someone with lead-gloves.  It puts a bag over her head.  It tells God that His design is worthless and paves the way for the same treatment of His Church.   

And the worst part of it is that, though you can confess this grievous sin that is truly against God, and fellow man and wife all at once, there isn’t much way to atone for it.  At least, there ain’t much I can think of that would begin to cover the loss.

That sort of punch hurts the target so much that the offender can feel the pain, unless he’s dead.  And it will show a Christian just how short a space he’s come from the days before Christ claimed his life.  Unless he’s dead.

I’m sorry, Babe.  I blew it.

Thinking about contentment and peace in my heart.  Challies had a well crafted discussion of the topic today at his website.  The whole idea has more to it than choosing to be at peace with things or to choosing battles, selectively avoiding stuff that disrupts our contentment in Christ.

Experience tells me that the flow inward will directly affect my contentment and peace.  Just as what I put in my mouth affects what comes out, so does that same food affect my internal state.  What I put in my mind and heart affects the attitude and mental state of me as well as what comes out of my mouth.  Contentment produces contented actions and words.  Things that make contentment must be taken in order to get or maintain contentment.

But that’s all in the Bible too, well before my limited learning could apprehend this gem of an idea.

A quick run through the engine at www.BibleGateway.com gave me some examples of this in and out stuff:

Job 20.

Proverbs 10:14

The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

Proverbs 10:31

The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.

1 Corinthians 6:13 says:

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

So what I really need is more Romans 12:1&2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

I need to keep a steady flow of the Godly into me in order to combat the fear, the confusion, the disturbance, the misery, the hopelessness that surrounds me.

I’ve always stuck to the rule that good food doesn’t have to just be healthy.  There’s a real goodness to food that makes you feel good.  Even if it’s well below the level of good for you, and borderline bad for you, it can be good.  Take the Double Whopper With Cheese from BK.

This is way bad for you.  Greasebomb cholesterolpill 3-days-of-calorie-rations nastiness.  But when I get sick, tired and worn-out with a cold or other booger-hacking-slimy affliction, one of these and a gallon of orange juice serves to set me just right. I might not get healthier because of the non-nutrients this food is giving me, but it improves my mood and outlook significantly.  The DWWCfBK is better than a Tylenol and a nap.

How much more effective in our spirits is the Word and Prayer and Worship and Fellowship.  They are just the right nutrient-filled, tasty treat to banish our fretting and malcontent.  You can’t live off these things (well, except for the fellowship part, if you go to the right church), but I tell you, you can LIVE off these things.  In the last few weeks, I’ve started leaning back toward them, taking more and more in, slowly increasing the dosage and man, I can’t seem to understand why it is that I ever back off these good things!

And you can’t live without them.  A man without the water of life flowing through him is a dried up shell.  There’s no point to being a Christian if you’re not being one.  What a waste.

So turn off the gunk and put on the Gospel.  Put away the pulp and pick up the pulpit.  Dump the despair and decide on devotion.

Newsboys sing about it.  They’re not old fuddy-duddies from the turn of the century.

Jars of Clay sing about it too.  Ditto.

Oh, wait.  That is an old song.  But wait!  It’s cool, cause J.O.C. sings it!

Nobody can say our Christian culture is behind the times and there’s no relevant way to compete with the garbage that’s out there.  Say you need something better than

Blah.  Enough pandering to the masses.  The Bible, with all its GLORIOUS conservative, single-minded, absolute, timeless, beautiful, convicting, unfaltering, unforgiving, forgiving, loving, exclusive, intolerant, sacred, one-of-a-kind message is more than enough, tons more than enough for the sickness inside.  It’s gonna teach you contentment that no burger, no beer, no hit, no therapy, no home-run, no sabbatical will get you God.

The Bible with the escorts and vanguard of the great writers and singers and bands and artists that believe the BIBLE is true and right and that the ONLY way to the Father is through the Son, is all we need.  Fooey on the rest.

So I’m content.

More of the Chuck Colson I heard this week on the Focus On The Family radio broadcast.  Marines during the Vietnam war spent countless hours training every day to be able to fight and survive Over There.

Why don’t Christians, who have so much more to lose, to gain, even come close to that sort of preparation for combat?  I thought the same way when I was a Newbie to the faith.   I’ve distressingly slacked off on my PT and combat conditioning as a Christian since.  I absolutely must (and want) to get that back.

Also, an alarming thing that has been around a while, but is sparked by not just the Colson this week, but with Anika’s history course in college (her term paper) and a bunch of other stuff, including a sudden, rather interesting resurfacing at work of my writing from last year.

Truth.  We still have a massive problem with truth.  Apparently, over 50% of christians cannot grasp or commit to the concept of True Truth, of absolute truth.

Let me make this clear, any denial of absolute truth, the existence of such or the questioning of such in regards to the Bible, is a denial of the Gospel.  Introduce one speck of doubt that the Word of God is true and what follows is denial of the Gospel.  One can claim not to understand certain parts all day long.  One can be in sin, sad and in confusion about Biblical principles or whatever.

But if a christian claims to believe the Gospel, on the name of Jesus Christ (John 3:16), and says there are parts of the Bible that may not be true, or that they just can’t believe in absolute truth, that person is seriously WRONG.  Here is where rubber meets the road.

Allowing the Bible to have non-absolute truth is what has brought the Episcopal church in America to the swine-pens.  It is what has made good churches flop to eating peelings and offal with the animals.  It is what has led to the tarnishing of the name of God in the eyes of the world.

Lemme say, I’ve read over and over and I believe whole-heartedly that humans need boundaries.  We must have concretes and absolutes.  Kids must have their boundaries or they will face horrid challenges as adults to conform, to perform, to meet the face of their peers, cohorts and enemies and deal properly with each.  Adults must have the same.  I see the lack of boundaries and absolutes in the Navy as The One Most Devastating cause of morale and discipline failures we have today.

Absolute truth, concretes, laws (not the ones passed in the USG, but those which really are RULES) must exist, must be comprehended and must be committed to by the superiors and the subordinates in all places of our society.  There is no exception to the church or to individual christians.  Period.  In fact, I am certain that it is actually EXCEPTIONALLY true about Christ’s house and inhabitants.  We are the salt and light, and our projection upon the earth is that of God’s Absolute Authority over our lives, those outside God’s family and all of creation.  Period.

Colson said this problem is why so many are turning to Islam, because it is a source of concrete rules, of doctrine where the adherent is required (REQUIRED) to follow the rules.  Period.

SHAME on me.  Shame on us.  Shame on us for not following God’s rules, his directions throughout our lives.  Double shame on us in handling his word as a business manual for making our own names big and our pocketbooks fatter.  TRIPLE shame on us who deny that God’s testimony of himself could even possibly, even minutely unimportantly, be questionable.

If I don’t agree with the Bible, saying it is wrong in this place or that part, I am wrong, not the Bible.  Be my argument the handling of sex and relationships, I am on the losing end.  If my argument is health and wealth being mine and not at the sole discretion of my God in his unwavering will, I am at fault.  If I want to chill out with a cold one and a smoke and talk about the hot chicks at work for hours, giving up the chance to go to worship and renew my walk with my fellow christians in the race that we all swore we’d begin and complete without reserve, and I argue that the Bible has given me that freedom now, for I am free…  I’m wrong there too.

And I’ve done them all.  All three listed and plenty others.  Some still hurt, the miserable, sinful, horridness of my choices AS A PROFESSING CHRISTIAN and I shudder to recall them.  I am forgiven, but the chills remain, an inescapable cross that casts its shadow on my face, reminding me of how much argument with my God costs.  I still haven’t finished dealing with some of it.  Some of my sins’ shadows are going to come knocking here eventually,  and there’s really nothing I can do but wait for the color to show and seek the restitution as it becomes possible.

All that simply means that personal defiance, denial, departure in regards to God’s Word is the stuff of nightmares.  It’s death to testimony, death to ministry, to fellowship, to witness, you name it.  It might not destroy your salvation, which God has fore-ordained and pre-paid from before time and through Christ’s sacrifice for the death penalty, but it can render us with empty pockets and bare feet when we come home to him, asking in our groveling shame to be numbered among the lowest servants.

Worthiness to be called sons of God includes living up to the terms of adoption.  We enter a new house, we fall under its rules.  Children grow up under a set of rules in their homes.  If ever they return to their childhood home, the rules, I would think, would still be there.  We owe Our Lord that commitment, that very signature-in-blood-oath that is our own fundamental, unshakeable, absolute truth:  Obedience and belief.

Walking the fence?  Peril.  If you fall off, you’ll hit hard on either side.  There’s your ground truth.

I’ve been reading Sproul, Schaeffer, MacArthur, Paul, Peter, Luke and a bunch of other stuff.  I listened to Chuck Colson on the radio, along with Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Dr. David Jeremiah and a host of others (Though I think the local Christian radio station essentially stinks here, being negligent in their commercialism and foul in their screening of advertisers, they do feature the above teachers on their daily casts).  I’ve seen a bit of internet blogging and video as well.   You could say I’m really looking for some answers.

One answer that I feel is most important, so much so that if one were to stop reading this post after the next two sentences, all would be complete.  I have found there is a need for people to hear this and hear it good:

“You are going to argue; you, are going to argue, with WHO?  The Creator of the universe took the time to specially design you, personally pen you a complete, unobscured revelation of Himself, suffer for you on the cross, die for your sins, you profess to believe all this (or not, either way is moot), and you.  actually.  intend.  to disagree with His viewpoint?  Beg pardon?”

Basically, I’m feeling an itch on my foot and it sure seems to be inclined toward shaking the dust off…

I have seriously begun to try wading through the apparent morass of dispensational vs. covenant theologies, and I don’t think I’ve got far with that.  The basic reason for this theological dissection is that I’m from a pretty much dispensational baptist sort of background, intend to attend a reformed presbyterian church (PCA, not PCfrUitS-And-nuts) and I’m informed of the serious difference in ecclesioeschasoteribaptiologies.  There is so much scholarly work on both sides and I can’t seem to make sense of either one.  I am suspicious that this whole debate must be over a mystery that the Lord has not yet uncovered for our amazement or that we just can’t get along.  One thing I will note is that in my reading so far, the dispensies seem to be leading the way in meanness, but that doesn’t mean much since I may well have just not come across their covenant peers-in-arms.

I have seriously continued to try wading through the personally discouraging morass of learning how to love others as the Lord commands.  This has such miserably limited tangible results that I count myself a fairly washed-up washup.  I don’t think I know how to do it.  I pray.  I try it all with as much peace and patience as I can muster, and leave the rest to the Lord.

I see less worth in the worthless things around me.  I see more worth in that which brings less worth in this mortal span.  I am broker than broke, but His richness surpasses my sorry state.  I am tired and feel lost, but when I look to him, which is not often enough, I am alive and feel strong.  I need prayer and not just from those praying for me, but my own prayer.

Why?  Prayer isn’t a magic wand, getting us what we want.  It isn’t a toolbox that, when the right words are pulled from the drawer, gets the Lord convinced to help us out.  Prayer isn’t a self-motivation exercise that allows us to help our selves so that God will help us.  Prayer doesn’t get us those things just cause we do it.

Prayer is a continuous dialogue with our Creator and Master who has deemed it worthwhile to join us in conversation that flows from us in words of praise and adoration, desire and dream, penitence and remorse, fear and devotion, reflecting back upon Him the glory, sovereignty, omnipotence, grace, love and perfection that He already is, only this through our recognition, which essentially magnifies and glorifies Him all the more.  We get what we want not because we want or we need but because He is gracious, sufficient, loving and capable of providing.

We pray this each night before bed, and I strive to take this literally, with the fullest I can grasp of its scope and magnitude:

Our Father, (There is only one, this one, no alternative, not just God, but our Father that surpasses all fatherliness on this planet; the sole example of what father really is.)

Who is in heaven, (Holy and separate from us yet we know where you are.)

Hallowed be your name. (So holy and separate, revered even at just the mention of your name.)

Your kingdom come (Not that it should or that we want it eventually to get there, but that it already has, and will continue to come, acknowledged and awaited.)

Your will be done (Let it be done, make it so, we know that it is and has and shall be, and we acknowledge it with welcome arms.)

On earth as it is in heaven. (Let there be no difference, let us see it here and believe it here and with no question that there is any difference between your methods there or here.)

Give us to day, our daily bread, (For what more can we ask, those daily things that prove our breath and our pulse; and let us keep our mind on these simple things, knowing that all else can be counted as waste on our bellies.)

And forgive our sins (For we are sinners, no doubt that we are, and we have no recourse but to turn to you, you for forgiveness, for restoration, for fitting back onto the course when we have fallen.)

As we forgive those who sin against us. (May I never, never ask for your forgiveness, when I have not let go those offenses against me.  I make your sacrifice, your salvation, a mockery when I in my self-righteousness come to you for that which I will not give my neighbor.)

Lead us not into temptation (Take us far from it as the East is from the West.  Drive us from temptation  with every step we take.)

Deliver us from the evil one (Let me never worry that I have fallen into his nefarious grasp, rather, prevent me from my inclinations toward his ways.  Prevent me from denying you, from placing myself before you in authority, in reverence, in motive.)

For yours is the kingdom (Always and forever, there is no other.)

And the power (There is no power in existence that can twitch even a flicker of a shadow upon your supreme sovereignty.)

And the glory (And there is no glory but your glory, and may I take my need for pride solely  in that fact, that you are my God and your glory is my chief aim in my existence.)

Forever and ever (None of what I have just prayed shall ever change in tone or in value for all eternity.  While I am here on this earth and there in your presence, what more is there to pray?)

Amen. (And that’s final, period, I can say this prayer again, but it really does have the finality of it all built right in)

I have seriously been struck by my lack of discipline, lack of reverence and plain lack of obedience in my little life.  I’ve seen the light in some major areas and am a Penitent Man therewith.  There is a sense of authority that has been welling up in my life that is not my own, but that of the Lord.  I, on the other hand, feel that my ability to control, to will, seems so feeble that it rather hurts.  I haven’t reached a definite point here, nor can I get my head wrapped around it all yet.

Something I heard quoted by Chuck Colson today, which I’ll paraphrase and embellish lalala, resounds in my head like one of the Korean bells from when I was there in 1992, clear and vibrating like nothing else:

Consider the Lord, when surveying the whole of creation, from the great whirling galaxies and the gemstone planets, the trees, the waves, the men and the goats, the grains of sand and the DNA proteins, when he surveys all this, one thing can be heard, his own voice, crying out through all space and time…

“MINE.”

So today I think I’m going to talk about issues of the heart.  All of them, maybe.  One at a time.  Easy enough?  Here goes (I’ll start off complex and work my way progressively to more simple stuff):

A boss today essentially told me I needed to straighten up my act.  There’s a guy who works for me that has serious problems with authority.  He is a classic case of aggressive-passive (intentional wording).  Given a task, he will comply to the very minimum requirements of the task and grumble, back-bite, whine, blame and whatever-else-can-issue-from-the-mouth to the very maximum tolerance of his surroundings without actually crossing the line into blatant defiance.  And he cares not a whit for who hears him or observes it.  But this whole thing isn’t about him.  It’s about me.  The boss said I shouldn’t take that from him.  He said I really need to ratchet down on my little problem-child and basically tell him to put up or shut up.

The boss is right.  And I agreed with him.  As explanation (as opposed to excuse), I said I’d never really run into this type of character at work before and I wasn’t sure what buttons I could push to start getting through to him.  I’ve been in a lot (I think, A Lot) of odd situations with odd circumstances and a broad variety of characters, but honestly I don’t think I’ve ever been saddled with this type of total butt-pain.  So I’ve never really had to use the #9 boot calibration method, which is required in this situation.

The boss said “You wouldn’t let this kind of garbage go on at home with your kids, right?”  To which I obviously had to say, “Of course not.”  And that, of course, gave me pause and I really had to think.  Would I?

It’s two different situations.  I’ve spent my life with my kids and 13 years with my Wife.  I think I know how to diffuse, control, stop, bypass and deal with this sort of mess at home.  And I enjoy an authority and influence at home that I certainly do not possess at work.  So he’s right.  I wouldn’t let that go on in my own home.

At work, I’m in a different situation (keep with me here, it’ll make sense).  I’m experientially subordinate to the people who work for me.  They’ve been in the specific field we work in for a dedicated 3 years wherein I’ve been at it for less that 6 months.  They’re well acquainted with each other and the majority of the other workers in the environment.  I am not.  They have become set in their routine, methods and practice.  I am not part of that.  All of this combines to make a battlefield in which I am at serious disadvantage.  I don’t really know the lay of the land.  The enemy is thoroughly entrenched and they know the ranges, weather, terrain and maneuvers to get what they want done.

Bullshit.  If a guy consistently cusses you out behind your back and essentially tells you where you can stuff it, even if he ultimately complies with orders, he is an insubordinate failure.  And you have allowed him to fail.  Point one to God’s law.  As leader, I am responsible.

If someone persistently offends, practicing unacceptable practices, hurts others, leads the progression of others’ growing skills in the same negative behavior, then that person is a failure.  And you have allowed him to fail.  Point one to God’s law.  As leader, I am responsible.

It’s a matter of the heart.  I’ve a better grasp and performance rating in this leadership process at home.  While nowhere perfect at it, I strive as patiently and enduringly as I can to battle uprisings of bad attitudes, hurtful actions, fighting, backbiting and general monstrocity daily.  And I am as relentless as I can be.

I have not taken that integrity, ethic, standard to work with me.  Because I am afraid.  Because I’m dealing with people with whom I’m not intimate and with whom I’m not familiar.  So I err on the side of weakness, avoiding conflict with the problems because I want to be liked.  Because I want work to be good.  O do I want the work to be good.  But instead I hate my job.  I spend no little amount of time hating myself because of what I do (rather, don’t do) at work.

I have not kept my faith in my God in focus.  I faith myself to death at home.  Praying doggedly for my family in general and in specifics.  I push my kids’ buttons with as much strength as I can to get them as sin-free as I can, knowing each time that success is of God and not of me.

But I don’t do that at work.  I change faces at work.  And the face I have is not particularly admirable.

Simple bit:  It’s of the heart.  I’m not sick.  It is not the fault of the jerk at work.  It is not the environment at work.  It’s not the lack of fulfillment at work.  It’s not stress at home making my work wrong.  It’s me.  Me resisting the pulls of the Spirit to pursue God’s ways at work.  I have let the World work a weak spot of corrosion in my character.

It’s of the heart when you’re dealing with a liar.  It’s of the heart when you have a deep depression.  It’s of the heart when you’re battling someone who just. won’t. listen.  It’s of the heart when you can’t seem to give up this or that.

Yes, physical conditions, the environment, other people, the weather, body-odor can all contribute to aggravate a problem.  But the real root is just that, the heart.

We’ve been studying in Romans at church.  We read in Chapter 1 how things suck so bad that if we really grasped the depth of the problem, we’d probably all just curl up into little balls and wait for the meteor to obliterate us.

Romans 1:28,

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

Simple.  31 flavors.  One for everyone.  Pick.  I have most of them in my toolbox.

Simplest:  Just in case anybody didn’t see their personal colors in 1:28, here’s the catch-all:

Romans 3:10 (and Psalm 14:1-3)

“As it is written:  ‘There is none righteous, no, not one;’”

We’re messed up.  It’s in the heart.  Can’t blame it on the rain.

Now how does it apply to the current theme here on my little blog?  Healing?  Look.  I am aware of the physical problems.  I know about medications now, and clinical diagnoses and everything.  I may not know everything, but I know way more than I really want to know now.  I’ve done research and see the light.  There’s no denying a physiological and environmental part, huge part, in all this trial.  But in the end, should all those things be cured…

It’s still in the heart.

And that’s what I’m praying for most of all.  That He’ll put us all in the way of fixing her heart.  He’ll do it, I’m sure.  I just want the joy of being a part of that miracle.  And I want it more than I want to fix the thing at work.

But, I think, as I’ve said and have been told a million times before:  If you can’t be trusted in the little things, how can you make it in the big time?

Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30.  Look it up.  I did.

Today was fairly simple.  Nothing horrible happened.  Nothing wonderful happened.  Well, nothing wonderful except the joy of having my wonderful family, a Beautiful set of weather, safety, health, a good dinner with all my girls.  There should Always be a silver lining in the day.  Shadows may linger, but in order to discern shadow, one needs some sort of light.  So it wasn’t a bad day at all.

I even got to actually. fix. something. at work.  And I got to, not just be a participant, but to fix something myself.  I can’t explain how much it helps to turn something that doesn’t work into something that does, the way it’s designed.

And I cleaned.  I love cleaning.  It’s busy work, I know, and it’s tiring, but I feel accomplished when I do a good set of cleaning.  So the floors and dusting got done.  Looks a bunch better.  And I hauled out a bunch of junk that was holding down shelves and tables in an unfashionable way.  Goody.

Got one contact recommendation back for doctors.  Tomorrow I should hear back from another one.  Maybe next week we’ll be back in business with the therapy and everything.  That should lift some of the worry off my wimpy little shoulders.

I just have to keep in mind the goodness and mercy that follows all our days here, or…

Exodus 16:3

“And the children of Israel said to them, ‘Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full!  For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’”

Just my quick thought for the day.

Fellowship

We’re supposed to be accountable.  To God, to each other.

Transparency promotes accountability.

Honesty is integral to transparency.

Communication is required for honesty.

If nobody knows me, my take, my situation, none of these conditions or states exists.

So if I keep my mouth shut, there is no Fellowship in my life.

Then nobody knows me.

God does, but God doesn’t seems to like one-way streets.

How do I know Him if I don’t have accountransparonestability right here in me?  He’s got a thing for Christians being together, working together.  God doesn’t call us to be the soloist all the time.  Rarely, if ever, are we required to be truly alone.  I’ve never been alone.  Not really (though my little voice-from-the-back-of-the-room seems to have the perverse idea that I am, but I’m constantly striving to ignore it).

So I talk.  Sometimes they (They, haha) say too I say too much.  So I say what is here in my mind.  I try to communicate my failure.  I try to communicate my success.  Things I think I’m doing right and doing wrong.

Of the things in my heart and mind, I rarely offer but a small sample.  I realize that to battle the tendency to insulate and hide, I must persist in my attempts to be transparent.  I must persist in making sure my loved ones, my brothers know me.  One small step at a time, revealing my shadows pixel by pixel, is called progress.

I can’t be helped, I can’t be encouraged, I can’t be corrected unless I open my door and let people see my living room.  And my bedroom, and my bathroom, and my closet, and my storage shed.

And, finally, my secret sanctum, that trap door just large enough to admit me, just a Robert-shaped keyhole that nobody else fits.  But that place is not truly a sanctum.  It is that place of torture wherein I relive my failures, store my potential in mothballs and rust; a dust-layered bomb-shelter outfitted with little more than a pallet, chains and reams of moldering papers and half-faded pictures.

And honesty starts by realizing that I have all this.  Transparency starts by widening the aperture that grants access.  Accountability starts by pushing some of that secret archive out into the sunlight.

Weakness pales in the light of the Son.  Shadows fade in the light of the Son.  Words fail in the light of the Son.

I need, I fear, I believe, I fall-have fallen, I trust, I run, I collapse, I lose, I plead, I barely breathe.

Yet I live, for He lives.

Stained glass hides the real insides.

Not entirely related, all those words up there.  I just have some thoughts I have stowed in my noggin that seemed to collate this morning.

First, the Palin thing.

I’m not into politics.  There’s just nothing there for me to chew on.  I don’t get the lip-sync thing and all the empty words.  I have a great distaste for ambiguities and the hollow things that fly at all these speeches.  People verbally assaulting each other, digging dirt, promising vast, glorious nothing.  It’s not something I understand.

The emergence of McCain’s Pick has sort of illuminated me.  I actually saw a few minutes of her speech at the convention, saw her kids, was impressed.  I think overall, I was taken by the fact that Palin seems, just, normal.  I like that.

But the point I want to get at here is not about her, but about me.  In the ensuing blog-o-flood upon Palin’s unveiling there is a HUGE amount of discussion about various family values and female roles and general dynamics of why this lady is good for the job.  Why is it okay for her to be on this job?  Why is it okay in light of her family and the baby thing and in relationship with the church.

I have to admit, I learned a lot from cruising the discussions.  I started out skeptical about whether a Mommy should be entering a field that will take all her focus away from her Mommy world.  I didn’t think it was a good idea for a woman to be in charge like this when she has so much to be in charge of right in her family.  Yep, I think I was all mixed up in the difference between worldly and churchly orders.  There is a huge difference between the two.

In the hierarchy God established, were Palin going to be PIC (Priest In Chief), she’d be in the wrong place.  But this government isn’t a Christian government.  It’s a government of the people.  Through all my reading, it’s pretty clear to me that I’ve not thought things too clearly through.  I thought the idea was a bad one.  I inconveniently forgot about a couple of weighty arguments, which, when remembered, cleared the fog.  Margaret Thatcher?  Queen Elizabeth?  Didn’t they manage pretty well?  Weren’t they highly regarded?  I humbly submit that I wasn’t thinking straight.

That done, On to Moses.

It recently occured to me that Moses’ job is a role to be scrutinized.  His life was the epitome of trials, insubordination, frustration and perseverance in leadership.

Mommy and Daddy.  Do we lose it when our kids do that same thing over and over, no matter how many times we chastise, cajole, correct, debate, pray, teach?  Take a look at Moses.  He had the literal presence of God multiple times throughout his career to lend eternally formidable weight to his leadership of the Israelites.  Didn’t work out for him every time, did it?

Teachers.  There are so many moments when we just can’t grasp why our charges just don’t get it.  They’re disruptive, they’re slow to learn, they’re just not interested.  We’re impatient.  1 + 1 = 2 and that should be easy enough to get.  But it doesn’t work.  We’re livid; the refusal to do homework, pay attention, the backtalk and argument all put us at our wits’ end.  We’re teaching straight from the Bible.  We’re giving straight truth with the desire to see kids know what they must to function in the world.  We’re intent on seeing children come to Christ.  But they consistently fall short of our desires.  And we fall short too.  Take a look at Moses.  He’s as prime an example as any of us could ask for.

Moses ran through a generation of history, reviewing every incident during his tenure, when he gave his opening words in Deuteronomy.  He reminded his people of what he had done, what they had done, what God had done, all in pretty good detail.  Take a second look at the list of failures.  Not just the people’s failures, but Moses’ as well.  He lost his temper, he was ready to give up on ‘em more than once.  The appointed leader of the People got fed up, pulled his hair out, even flipped his lid so much that God revoked his admission to the Promised Land.

Are we all not like that?  Both like Moses and like the Children of Israel?  We can’t seem to find success in our teaching and leadership.  We can’t seem to obey our worldly masters or our Lord either.  We arrive easily at wrath and easily at despair.

But God is still with us.  Regardless of our miserable attempts and spectacular failures, He Still Is (I AM).  He forgives us.  He takes more time than we deserve to resolve us into what He wants.  He brings us Home, whether we have lost our temper or given up our temporal hope.  We’re still His children.

Finally, the food thing.

This is more trivial, but it shows a direct impact of God’s putting me together with a family.

I’m terrible about taking care of myself.  I don’t do well at the routine stuff that a bachelor should be able to handle.  Mostly I’m talking about food, here.  I can’t cook.  Not that I Can’t Cook, but that I can’t bring myself to do so.  I just don’t have any desire to get up and just do for me as I should.

I don’t do very well at all when not in what I believe is my natural environment.  When I’m home, it all works.  I don’t always cook there, but I can.  I eat.  I actually remember to make food and eat it.  I remember because of my girls, because of my Wife.  If it’s eat time, I’ll get food going.  If I’m hungry, I’ll figure out food, and usually tune the creation to something the rest will like too, if possible.

At home, I love making Chip-n-Dip for my Beloved.  I love making GPBC or One-Eyed-Monsters for my girls.  I make it, we eat it and we’re happy.  Sunday Special Breakfast is always the rage.  Outside home?  I’m slow, lazy and eat when the body says “or else!”  A reader might harrumph and comment that I’m just plain stupid, failing to take regular time to care for myself.  That reader just don’t get it.  I’m admittedly incompetent at the basics.  I think one of my kids suffers from the same fault, and I begin, slowly, to understand her frustration as well as mine and her mother’s about her.

Some people are naturally capable at everything, or at least capable enough to manage for themselves. I don’t think I got the same gear issued as those Some People.  I think I function fairly well when I’m safely cloaked in my 5, remembering the chores, the duties, the necessities, and I get them done (with joy and satisfaction, too!).  Just not when I’m alone.  There’s a dependency that I have, and it’s not a bad one at all.  I am more than myself when not at home, or maybe I’m more Fully myself then.

There are plenty of other things I just can’t bring myself to deal with when I’m not home.  I won’t detail the long list here, suffice to say it’s fairly annoyingly long.  I just wanted to illuminate the fact that, with out my family, I’m a pretty shoddy human.  God provided a home, a Beloved, an entirely lovely family for me, just as I had hoped for over and over for a very long time.  And that family has benefited me immensely in return.  I wasn’t meant to be a single guy, I’m sure.

Granted, I don’t transform into superhusbandaddy whenever I walk in the front door.  I have bad days, bad weeks.  I don’t make a sweeping victory over the bum in me consistently as I would dearly wish.  But I’m so glad I’m going home.  I’m no good at this single thing, clearly.  Here’s praying that I don’t have to suffer this trial too many more times.

All that done and said…

I found something I want for Christmas (shameless plug).  There’s a new Bible study media out.  The ESV HDNT.  It looks really handy.  I’m a growing fan of the ESV (gave my copy away to a friend in need, so I am on the lookout for another one when I get home).  The HDNT is a really cool potential addition to my slowly growing Bible Study Library.

I love the gimmicks, I admit.  This really does look like a good bit of work, though.  Somebody really thought this out.  Wish they had test-drives available.

And finally (finally finally)

I fiddled with my About Me page.  Nothing much.  Just kinda fleshed it out a little.  Tried to be more poetic and spiffy.